this primitive language, and he has in general no inclination. to view things from an ethnological stand-point. The ethnological point of view was first emphasized by KUHN in the Osterprogramm des Berliner Realgymnasiums for 1845. (Cf. WEBER, Indische Studien, 1, page 323.)

According to BOPP, the individual languages have freed themselves from the "primitive home" by an "individualizing" process. The expression "separation of languages" [Sprachtrennung] also occurs (§ 493). Of the nearer or more remote relationship, i. e. of the order followed in the separation of the languages, BOPP's opinion was as follows: in Asia the Sanskrit and Medo-Persian are intimately connected; in Europe the Greek and Latin. In regard to the position of the Slavonic Bopp's opinion changed in the course of time. First (Vergl. Gram., 1st edition, page 760) he considered the Lithuanian, Slavonic and German as "triplets"; later (Ueber die Sprache der alten Preussen, Abh. der Berl. Akad., 1853, page 80) he defined his view thus: "The separation of the SlavoLithuanian idioms from the Asiatic sister-language, whether we call this Sanskrit or leave it without a name, is of later date than that of the classic, Germanic and Celtic languages, yet prior to the bifurcation of the Asiatic portion of our linguistic domain into the Medo-Persian and Indian branches.” He did not assume a special relationship between the languages of the Celts and Romans.

SCHLEICHER was the first to establish a formal system of ramification for the Indo-European languages (under the figure of a genealogical tree). He agreed with Bopp in his assumption of a closer relationship between the Indian and Iranian branches (which is, indeed, irrefutable), and between the Italic and Greek languages, but differed from him in regard to the position of the Slavo-Lithuanian. He attempted to prove that the similarity of phonetic structure, which indubitably exists between the Asiatic languages and the Slavo-Lithuanian, does not date from primitive times, but originated in each group individually. Thus he assumes that the word for "hundred" in the parent speech was kantam, and that from this, after the separation of the primitive race into two, çatam

was developed in the Asiatic division, and suto in the Slavonic, quite independently of each other; so that the similarity between ç and s in this word, in which the Greek and Latin have preserved the old k, could not furnish any basis for genealogical conclusions. (Cf. Beiträge, 1, page 107.) Accordingly, he wholly separates the Slavo-Lithuanian from the Asiatic division, and with JACOB GRIMM places it with the Germanic group. The chief proof of the close relationship of these languages consists in their agreement in the dative plural, where they exhibit an m, while the other languages have bh (e. g. Slavonic vlŭkomŭ and Gothic vulfam, but Sanskrit výkebhyas). Further, since SCHLEICHER places the Celtic with the Italic (Beiträge, 1, 437), he obtains the following three groups: 1) Asiatic; 2) Slavo-Germanic; 3) Greco-Italo-Celtic. He defined the historical relation between these groups according to the fidelity with which each (in his opinion) has retained the primitive type. This fidelity seemed to him least in the Slavo-Germanic branch; he therefore assumed that this division was first separated from the primitive race, and then the Greco-Italo-Celtic, so that the Asiatic group alone remained.

It is plain, however, that this chronological classification depends upon a very questionable line of argument. The more advanced phonetic decay of the Slavo-Germanic (if, indeed, it can be regarded as proved) may be simply owing to the fact that the Slavo-Germanic has developed more quickly than its sister-tongues. SCHLEICHER does not, therefore, adduce sufficient grounds for dividing the Slavo-Germanic from the great European mass to which it geographically belongs. That it also belongs there from linguistic considerations was shown by LOTTNER in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 7, page 18 seq. He establishes two great groups, the Asiatic and the European, the latter being especially characterized by a common 7 in opposition to the Asiatic r (e. g. πodú, Gothic filu, as opposed to Sanskrit purú). A further characteristic was added by G. CURTIUS, in the e which appears uniformly in many positions, in opposition to the Asiatic a (e. g. pépw, fero, Gothic baira, i. e. běra, as opposed to bhárami). Thus the supposition seemed very probable that the Indo-Europeans, who spoke a uniform language while they were together, first split apart into Euro

peans on the one hand and Asiatics on the other, and that after the separation certain peculiarities were developed in both groups, as, for example, the European e, which subsequently clung to all the subdivisions of the main group. For the European branch it seemed necessary to make two such subdivisions, the northern and southern, of which the former was again divided into Slavonic and Germanic, the latter into Greek, Italic and Celtic.

The Greek was here the hardest to dispose of. Some scholars assumed that the Celtic first freed itself from the South-European mass, after which the Greek and Italic remained together for a while; others (like SCHLEICHER) advocated the closer community of the Italic and Celtic; others, finally, divided the Greek wholly from Europe, and transferred it to Asia. This is the decision of GRASSMANN (Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 12, page 119), who speaks with great certainty of the many phenomena "in which the far-reaching harmony between a Greek and Aryan (pre-Brahmanic) nature becomes evident to us in language, poesy, mythology and life, and bears witness to the powerful intellectual development which the ancestral Greco-Aryan race passed through after its separation from the other branches." SONNE expresses the same opinion in his apparently forgotten article 1): Zur ethnographischen Stellung der Griechen, Wismar, 1869.

All these hypotheses, so far as they involve the idea of the separation of races or languages, were opposed by JOHANNES SCHMIDT, in an essay on the relationship of the Indo-European languages (Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der indogermanischen Sprachen, Weimar, 1872). JOHANNES SCHMIDT starts from the same point where SCHLEICHER's opposition to Bopp began, namely, the relation of the Slavo-Lithuanian to the Asiatic, but considers BOPP essentially in the right. It is, indeed, very remarkable that in both groups the k of kantam becomes a sibilant (or something similar), while the k of ka

1) I take the occasion to quote a sentence from this article: "But if in Sanskrit the verb of the main sentence assumes an unaccented form relatively to every preceding objective determination, I think we must recognize in this phenomenon, which is so thoroughly opposed to our European ideas, a remnant of pro-ethnical accentuation." (Page 3.)

"who" remains. Should not this remarkable agreement be explained as a result of common development, and is not SCHLEICHER'S assumption of historical accident inadmissible? If, however, Bopp's view is correct, there is no break between Asia and Europe, but only a "continuous transition" [kontinuierliche Vermittelung]. And SCHMIDT finds the same state of affairs in Europe. He recognizes that Greek, Italic and Celtic are intimately connected; but they do not form a historically distinct group, for as the Italic occupies an intermediate position between Greek and Celtic, the Celtic, on the other hand, is intermediate between Italic and Germanic, and further, the Germanic between Celtic and Slavonic, etc. Thus we can compare the Indo-European languages to a great chain of different rings, so linked together that it has neither beginning nor end. If we begin arbitrarily with the Indo-Iranian, the next ring will be the Slavo-Lithuanian, then the Germanic, Celtic, Italic, until the Greek is finally interlinked with the Indo-Iranian. The Armenian, which has been more accurately investigated only within the last few years, would take its place between the Indo-Iranian and Greek.

It will readily be seen that this transition or "wave-theory" (as its originator christens it, since the progressive movement within the bounds of language can be compared with the motion of the waves) agrees with the ramification theory in giving weight to the points of agreement (some of which have been mentioned) between the separate Indo-European languages, but differs from it in assuming a continous transition in place of ramification. We accordingly must first examine this assumption. I am of opinion that the transition theory is untenable, if it is understood in the sense that a continuous transition takes place between all Indo-European languages, as they are historically transmitted to us. Against it we have the fact that the separate languages form independent unities, each shut off from the others. It is true that we may be in doubt under which group single dialects (e. g. within the Germanic family) are to be ranged; but with the chief languages, as for instance the Germanic in its relation to the Slavonic, the case is different. There could never be a doubt whether a certain linguistic mass were Slavonic or Germanic;

fixed boundaries exist between Germanic and Slavonic, as well as between the other chief languages. We are accordingly led to suppose that formerly, when the Germanic was spoken by fewer people, it constituted an uninterrupted field of intercourse, within which the separate Germanic dialects were developed in the course of time. The same is true of the other languages. And even if we were willing to make the assumption (which it seems to me cannot be proved, in spite of the ingenuity expended upon it) that the neighboring domains of two adjacent languages, like the Slavonic and Germanic, stand in closer relation than those more remote from each other, this would only prove that single peculiarities of the former boundary-region had passed over into the two divided territories, and that the position of the parts of each domain had suffered no great displacement; the assumption would still remain possible that the separate Indo-European languages have been divided from each other for a long period by boundaries preventing intercourse. The transition hypothesis must therefore be understood in the sense that in primitive times the languages did indeed form one connected whole, in the manner described by SCHMIDT, but that then boundaries preventing intercourse were formed, and thus a separate life began, which subsequently gained a rich historical development. This modification of SCHMIDT's hypothesis, which evidently recommends itself by its universal historical probability, is due to LESKIEN (Die Declination im SlawischLitauischen und Germanischen, Leipzig, 1876). It would accordingly seem that the transition and ramification hypotheses do not unconditionally exclude each other, but are to a certain extent compatible.

Unfortunately an objection must be noticed, which proceeds from the stand-point of more recent investigations, and is opposed to both the ramification and the transition hypothesis. That is, it has been discovered, by the investigations of the last few years, that the data from which it was customary to draw conclusions in regard to the closer relationship of individual languages are not so decisive as was hitherto assumed.

In general, it is clear that not every point of identity between two languages can be regarded as an argument for an